Startup Systems

First-principles thinking, or thinking from first principles, sounds a lot more complicated than it is. It’s simply a technique for approaching problems with a beginner’s mind. Instead of working within assumptions and what people around you “know” to be true, you do the hard work of figuring out what’s actually true and, thus, what’s truly... See more

Product-market fit always starts with the customer. And Dan Olsen’s PMF framework starts from the bottom up.

I started this company in one of the recessions and had seen suppliers and customers go to the wall in droves. To me, getting more customers and more orders meant safety and security.

To the people who worked for me, growth meant change.

Certainty - Making your customers feel secure about the quality and longevity of your product reduces the fear of disappointment or the need to frequently replace the item.

Variety - Owning items that introduce a sense of novelty to a person's life satisfies their need for variety and can make them feel more excited.

Significance - Owning something... See more

Pick a customer instead of an idea: “One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was that when you're starting a company, you often think you're picking an idea, but you're really picking a customer. It's actually pretty easy to change your idea, but it’s way harder to change the customer you're serving,” says Agrawal.

The teams are currently structured by function (product, R&D, design, business, etc.), and different teams think about different layers of the company and stack. But all energy is directed toward improving the core product. We design objectives that translate to common top-level metrics and improve the user experience holistically. For example, all... See more